The "Istituto Onorato Damen" – A Small
Clarification

The text
of the Internationalist Communist Tendency which follows, was written
in 2009. It is a summary of the Report
on the Annual General Assembly of the
ICP (Battaglia Comunista) published in its press and on its web site
(http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2009-11-07/the-"istituto-onorato-damen"-a-small-clarification).
It has been re-published on the web site of the review Controverses,
the very one which had declared the "bankrupcy of the Communist
Left groups" and which calls for their dissolution (see our
response to the IC-K in this bulletin). Actually, Controverses
has found an echo to its own thoughts and method amongst militants of
the ICT (then IBRP) who had deserted this organisation in 2009 as did
the comrades of Controverses
with the ICC. The abandon of the ICP without fighting for defending
their criticisms and their own positions within the organisation,
their absence of political platform – as the ICT text
underlines it - not only comes to participate to the dispersion
of the proletarian camp and to its weakening, but above all to
strengthen the liquidationnist and anti-organisation tendencies which
proliferates at the present time and of which the review Controverses
seems to have become the rallying
point.

In
front of this present offensive against the usefulness and the very
existence of the Communist Left groups, we think very important to
participate to make known the ICT's response the wider possible ;
and we take the opportunity to salute it and support it. By
condemning the attitude of desertion of its own members resigning, it
condemns at the same time the attitude and the thoughts of
Controverses
and the whole
anti-organisation jumble which tries to gather around it. Actually,
"how
politically mistaken and unjust was the method the comrades adopted
first to criticise and then to leave the Internationalist Communist
Party" as
well as "to
put forward the idea that there is a political deviation and then not
to turn up at the congress called to discuss it cannot be taken
seriously".

Our
only reserve on this text is secundary in front of the new
liquidators and in front of the dispersion of the communist forces ;
but it is not the least very important from the point of view of the
struggle for the communist forces regroupment. It turns on the
affirmation that
"a communist organisation can only
develop through its intervention in the class and in real struggles"
(we
underline). Here is for the least a reducing vision that Lenin in his
time, in What
has to be done ? for
instance, has criticized in his struggle against Economism. If the
criticism of the "discussion circle" in this case seems to
us justified, the ICT comrades forget the fundamental role of the
debates, of the confrontations of political positions, of the
polemics and criticisms within the communist camp, for the
strenghtening and the development of the process leading to the
setting up of the party. It means that they seriously underestimate,
according to us, the "leading" role of political vanguard,
the irreplaceable political responsibility of the communist groups
vis-à-vis the whole international proletariat as the main and higher
expression of its class consciousness.

This
consideration (and criticism) does not at all tone down the
fundamental support we bring to their position against the nasty,
according to us, policy of the comrades of the Isituto O. Damen and
of Controverses.
In the fight of today, of the present historical period, on the
question of the party, we are on the same side of the barricade and
will continue to do all we can in order the ICT assumes, in a more
decided manner than it presently does, the role of pole of
regroupment which falls to it since the opportunist drift of the ICC.
Here we come back to the question of regroupment and we refer our
readers to our response to the IC-K (unfortunately only in French and
Spanish) in this issue.

The
Fraction of the International Communist Left.

The
"Istituto Onorato Damen" – A Small Clarification

An association taking the name “Istituto Onorato Damen”
was formed on 30 April of this year. The association was formed by
comrades who for several years were the Catanzaro section of the
Internationalist Communist Party. These comrades were formally
expelled from the organisation on 10 May at the AGM1
but largely because the, by now, ex-section of Catanzaro had already
left the ranks of the PCInt and therefore of the International Bureau
to form the above-mentioned association. We decided not to comment on
the birth of this institute in order to avoid useless polemics. We
have since learned that this association has produced a document
(“Punto e capo…”) which has been sent to, among
others, our readers and sympathisers as a result of the fact that
they still hold our subscription list. In this document they
attribute positions to us which are absolutely no part of our
political heritage, positions which we condemn and fight against We
are therefore obliged in front of our readers and sympathisers to
make a small clarification.

If we really wanted to make a full judgement on the political
behaviour of these comrades we would need an entire magazine. There
are so many of their actions that we could point to but the risk
would be to lose ourselves in a trivial polemic. We have therefore
decided to consider only those aspects which allow us to underline
how politically mistaken and unjust was the method these comrades
adopted first to criticise and then to leave the Internationalist
Communist Party.

We come to the point. In their document (“Punto e capo…”)
they maintain that our organisation has recently been oriented
towards movementist, situationist and anarcho-syndicalist positions.
The document is dated 30 July 2009 but the theory of some presumed
political deviation was first put forward by one of these comrades in
October 2007 during a meeting of the Executive Committee (CE)2.
The discussion in the CE ended with this comrade being given the task
of preparing a document for our comrades as the starting point for
education work on the party/class issue. This comrade never produced
the document in question. Going a little further back to the CE
meeting of April 2007 the same comrade took on the task, in
collaboration with the rest of the Catanzaro section, of preparing a
document which could be used to start a course of clarification for
party members on the theme of class consciousness and intervention.
Even this document was never produced. At the AGM in April 2008 why
did the comrades not even then pose the question of a political
deviation? And again in December 2008 in a letter to the CE the
Catanzaro section proposed the calling of an AGM with the agenda
being the approval of a document which clearly expressed our
conception of the party/class relationship and the question of
intervention. For the third time the same Catanzaro comrade took it
upon himself to draft this document, to send it to the CE, and all
the militants for the AGM. This document never arrived because
incredibly these comrades had decided not to attend the AGM (which
they had previously called for). The General Assembly of Militants
was duly held on 9-10 May3.
The first day was given over entirely to discussing the questions
raised by the Catanzaro comrades who, as we have already said had
already decided not to take part.

They had theorised the presence of a political deviation or drift,
and had had plenty of opportunity to seriously confront this
question. You cannot put forward such a serious criticism and then
end up refusing to participate in the AGM (which is our equivalent of
a Congress).

To put forward the idea that there is a political deviation and
then not to turn up at the congress called to discuss it cannot be
taken seriously. They claim to have settled the issue by email. They
claim that the replies they got to their email comments from other
comrades were brief and superficial. Hells bells! We are talking here
of a presumed political deviation in the Internationalist Communist
Party a discussion so serious and important that could not be
discussed at the congress (or rather AGM)! These comrades instead
indulged in entirely destructive behaviour which has stuck two
fingers up to the principle of democratic centralism. It is behaviour
which is light years away from the political traditions of the
communist left and the Internationalist Communist Party in
particular.

This is one of the two aspects which we want to inform everyone
about. The other is the lack of a basis for their accusations of a
movementist drift4.
Despite the absence of these comrades the AGM took on the political
questions they were posing. It was also decided to produce a document
just for internal circulation to record the contents of the meeting.
We have decided to make this account (“A propos the latest
painful events”) public in order to clarify — in front
of our readers and sympathisers — the political questions raised by
our ex-comrades. As we have already said the accusation of a
deviation has no foundation and without a shadow of a doubt there was
plenty of space in the AGM for these comrades to clarify (or at least
try to!) the question if they had been willing to.

These comrades have now formed an association unfortunately taking
the name of Onorato Damen. The birth was announced in a
“Communication” in which we read

“Such an institute has as its end the study, research and
dissemination of the principles of scientific socialism …
consolidated over time by the international communist left against
Stalinism and all forms of opportunism.”

An opportunism which these comrades condemn in words, but seem to
aspire to, in practice. The “communication” was in fact sent to,
among others, all the epigones of Bordigism, the ICC and it
splitters, ex Lotta Comunista etc or rather to whole areas of the
political spectrum which these comrades have always, quite rightly,
strongly criticised. And they also sent this communication to our
central address; even though we are according, to their way of seeing
things, movementist, situationist etc. In the communiqué we read

“This task of research, elaboration and dissemination
distinguishes the institute as essentially a place of discussion
whichwill be open to contributions from all who identify the
same need, who show a certain sensitivity to these themes and towards
the historic perspective which constitutes the final goal of the
struggle for liberation, of freedom for the entire proletariat.”

Open to contributions from all who identify the same need (which
need?), who show a certain sensitivity (which means?) towards these
topics. The thing — at least so far — seems to be vague, say
little and is therefore opportunist. What would be the political
platform of this association?

As they say themselves the institute is essentially a discussion
place and their communication gives it the semblance of a study
circle or publishing house. It is a type of organisation which has
little interest for revolutionaries like us. We are not interested in
seeing ourselves just as a discussion circle as we are certain that a
communist organisation can only develop through its intervention in
the class and in real struggles.

“The firm basis for proletarian strategy is the need for the
class party as the instrument of revolutionary struggle.”
(Onorato Damen, Battaglia Comunista 1950)

We will continue our work of forming and rooting within the
working class communist cadres in order to build a political
organisation of the proletariat. We will always maintain, with
whatever forces have, that intervention in the working class — in
the struggles in which they express themselves — is central to our
political work. It no accident that we want to end this article by
drawing attention to this issue and it is no accident either that we
follow the words of Onorato Damen

“We have to reassemble the forces of revolution, however
small in number, however partially destroyed, damaged, faltering,
inside the workers struggle; to regroup them in militant political
activity, and not just in writing texts on a typewriter, which is
only a personal and always very debatable activity, in both its
intentions as well as its outcomes.” (Onorato Damen, Battaglia
Comunista 11 1958)

NZ

STRUGGLE
AGAINST OPPORTUNISM

1.
AGM stands for General Assembly of Militants in which all the
members of the PCInt take part. It acts as a Central Committee and
it elects the central organ of the organisation (the Executive
Committee or CE).

2.
The comrade in question of the ex -section of Catanzaro was part of
the CE of the party, In fact it has been this comrade who played the
leading role in these absurd events.

4.
Just referring to our recent writings it should be enough just to
read, in particular, the article “The G20 Meltdown Protest” (BC
May 2009) and the pamphlet “Youthful spontaneity and the
revolutionary party” to see just how far we are from movementism.